


The Reverence of Wolves

by WinterRose527



Series: The Warmth of Winter [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cousin Incest, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-18 17:14:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 13,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11295111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterRose527/pseuds/WinterRose527
Summary: This is the companion piece to 'The Kindness of Wolves', told from the perspectives of Jon and Sansa.





	1. Chapter 1

He couldn’t believe it. Four years and countless battles but finally, they were here. The city smelled like death. It had before they’d gotten here, but it was fresher now. 

He had sworn it to Robb once, that they would make the Red Keep worthy of its name. That they would drench it in the blood of all those who kept their family from them. He had finally kept that promise today. 

He was covered in it, they all were but he didn’t care. Long Claw cut through the men like he was carving a cake. They fell easily, as though they didn’t really believe in their cause, not like the Northmen. Their soldiers fought for their homes and their family’s, and that of the Starks. His father had always told it true, the Northmen were more loyal. They had proved that with every one of the Seven Hells they had followed him and Robb into. 

It hadn’t been easy, leaving the Watch. The law and his honor forbade it, but Mormont, in his dying breath, had commanded it so. ‘Save your brothers, and your sisters, and your home, there is no honor in putting your vows above their lives,’ the old man had said to him as the blood poured from his belly. 

He had left that very night, and it had taken nearly three months for Sam, Green, Ghost and him to catch up with Robb’s army. Their father was dead by then, Arya missing. Lady Catelyn had actually smiled when she saw him, though she was dead now too. 

He made his way into the Throne Room just as Sansa wrenched herself from Robb’s arms where he knelt. By the gods could that be her? The red hair was the same, vibrant and long, but she was so much taller now, so slender it made his breath hiss, but so beautiful. 

She was scared of something, not them, they couldn’t have brainwashed her into really being afraid of them, could they? 

“Before they kill her! Robb you have no idea – she’s good, she’s saved me – you can’t let them kill her!” Sansa pleaded, half crazed. 

He heard Robb promise that they wouldn’t, that there was no reason to, and had watched the horror in his eyes when Sansa had noted how irrelevant that was. He met Robb’s tear stained eyes and he knew that the same horror was clear on his own face. What place had they left her in?

“Jon – the Princess Myrcella is here, in the castle. Please go and get her, see that she is unharmed and bring her here for an audience. Be as gentle as you can, she will be scared to death,” Robb said to him and for a brief moment Sansa’s eyes flicked to him. She looked at him almost bewildered, as though she was trying to rewind the years in her mind. The last time she’d seen him he didn’t have a beard, and he certainly wasn’t covered in blood. He felt himself diminish under the clear gaze of her blue eyes, diminish and awaken all at once. 

He was just following orders, he told himself, though he knew that in truth he fled from the room, afraid of her and her gaze and himself.

***

She had done it. She had survived. It defied logic and reason but somehow, she, the weakest of the Starks had lived. 

It had been hard to leave Robb in the Throne Room, but they’d both been led off to wash. He had done it, just like she’d thought all those years ago. He had killed them all, she exulted. 

He looked so much older now, older even then his twenty years. It wasn’t just time that had changed him, but loss, and hard fought battles. 

As she undressed for the bath, she wondered what she looked like to him. She looked in her mirror, turning to her side. She could see her ribs and her hip- bones, the sharp ridges of her spine. It wasn’t as though she’d been starved, but fear had stolen her appetite away and she hadn’t had the desire to fight for it. 

She lowered herself into the steaming bath, loving the weightlessness she felt, and her mind drifted to her other brother. Her half-brother she corrected and hated herself for it. She used to correct it out of loyalty to her mother, but now? Surely even her mother couldn’t begrudge the love she felt for one of the men who had fought years to save her? 

He had always been good. He and Robb had trained together since they were old enough to hold swords, and she had once been jealous of the ease of their relationship. Robb had always been a good older brother to her, kind and protective, her gallant knight she had called him. What would Jon have been like if she had let him? 

She remembered the bouquet of Winter roses he had picked for her one year on her name day, the way he let her scratch Ghost’s belly even when he was supposed to be learning obedience and she thought to herself that perhaps, whether she had let him or not, he had always been a good older brother to her as well.

She sunk underwater, and tried to forget the look in his black eyes when he had seen her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It will start to deviate a little bit more after this chapter, but I wanted to set the first meetings, all of which are really happening at the same time so there is ultimately a lot of overlap in this chapter.

His men had insisted on following him. Most of the capital soldiers had fallen already, but there were always more lurking about, and according to Grenn ‘They hadn’t followed him for four years to lose him in this shitpile’. 

He knew they had gotten to the right door when he saw the three guards posted outside. Three? What an insult to their princess. He made quick work of them, his men finishing them off before he could give them a second thought. 

The door put up more of a struggle but he finally got it down, nearly falling into the room, his men close behind. 

He couldn’t help it, he had been expecting the fourteen year old princess he remembered. He had hardly spoken to her then, it wouldn’t have been proper, a bastard speaking to a princess of the Iron Throne, but he had seen her. Sansa had adored her, so had Rickon, and the wolves. He remembered her blushing constantly in Robb’s presence, he had teased him about it then and it was the first and only time Robb had ever threatened him with actual steel in his voice. 

He certainly wasn’t expecting this vision in front of him. She could have been confused for a princess from a fairytale, all blonde hair and slender limbs, if one of those limbs hadn’t been held out in front of her, a dagger at the end of it. 

“Drop your blade you Lannister bitch!” a Karstark man shouted and Jon nearly struck the man then and there. 

The princess didn’t cower, she said, her voice dripping with the unattainable note of royalty, “Is this how the North was won? By making war on little girls?”

Stupidly, it was only then that he thought how they must look to her. Eleven grown men, bloody and wild, against her. 

“No Princess, you will not die today,” he said, though the gruffness of his voice hindered his attempt at reassurance. 

“You – you mean to torture us?” the most innocent voice he’d ever heard quivered from behind her. Only then did he see the little hand holding onto the princess’ skirt, and the way her arm locked now as her eyes narrowed.

He wants to vomit. Torture? A princess and a child? What place had these girls lived in, had Sansa lived in? Why did the Gods fate us to only die once? For he would resurrect Joffrey now so that might sink his blade into him like Robb had.

He is broken out of his horror by the Princess’ steely voice, “To hear the people tell it, Jon Snow, you’re the best swordsman ever to have lived,” she says, “But there is a reason the rabbit is faster than the wolf, the wolf chases his dinner, the rabbit runs for his life. You will not take us so easily, I assure you.”

“You think to challenge me, highness?” he asks, and can’t help the ghost of a smile that threatens his lips. She was a wonder and he could feel his men shifting uncomfortably under her withering gaze.

“I am not a fool, I do not pretend to think that I can beat you or the ten men you have amassed to take on two girls, but know this, while I live you will not have her. She is a princess of the blood, she is a girl of nine, and I will run every man through who tries to take her.”

She was good. Sansa had set it herself, said it with such conviction, like it was the truest thing she knew. He understood now. Here was a princess, no more than eighteen years old, threatening the war hardened men of the north, not in protection of herself but of her cousin.

“Sansa was right about you,” he says, shaking his head. 

“S-Sansa? You can’t mean? She’s alive?” the Princess asks and he can hear her voice waver for the first time. 

“Of course she’s alive, she’s the reason we’re here,” he explained.

“B-but I thought… how? Thanks be to the gods,” she said and he saw her sigh in relief.

“She’s ordered that you and Princess Shireen brought to her at once, unharmed. So you see, princess, we are not your captors, but rather your royal escort. If you’ll come with me?” he finds himself asking, offering her his arm. 

It had been a long time since he had used a Lord’s courtesy, but he couldn’t help it. She was so intrinsically royal that her presence demanded respect, but that wasn’t all. There was something about her, she was like sunshine, warm and beautiful but with a fire underneath that was not to be trifled with. She reminded him of Arya, the sister still lost to them, and he knew then and there, though he barely understood it, that he would lay down his life to protect her. 

They walk through the halls, which are stained red with the blood of her family’s soldiers. Every man who had ever been bound to protect her was dead, many at his hand. 

“Apologies for the blood, princess,” he says to her as he escorts her through her castle, leading her though it is she that knows the way.

He can almost hear her smile when she says, “I am a princess of the Iron Throne, it will take a good deal more than blood to frighten me.”

She is the princess the South had deserved. Not Tommen, the weak little boy, or Joffrey the second Mad King. They had held her in a tower and let her wilt like a rose, but by the gods had they let her claim her birthright, he was not sure the North would have survived.

***

She dressed in grey. She had hidden her last grey dress in the back of her closet in anticipation of this moment. They had dressed her in gold and red, twisted her hair into impossible knots, they had wrapped her in their colors and traditions and they had served as the bars of her prison. But not now, not when the Northern army awaited her, not when her brother awaited her. Her brothers, she corrected. 

She left her hair down, styled loosely, like she had before she’d gone South. She surveyed herself. Her gaunt cheekbones were less noticeable when her hair was down and she knew that the gown flattered her new figure. She looked like a Northerner. 

She walked into the Throne Room and heard more than she saw the rustle of armor clamoring as the men fell to their knees. She looked around the room, wondering if her brother had entered, but she saw that he stood there, in front of the princesses. They knelt for her, she registered blankly, her sole focus on the Southern princesses. 

She sees the look of shock on Ella’s face and knows that her own mirrors it. She can’t help it, she is supposed to be a princess now, but still, she runs towards her sister, her friend until they are in one another’s arms. 

“You were right, Ella, you were right,” she whispers and she is crying and laughing as she feels little Shireen wedge herself in between them, “And I swear by the old gods and the new, that I will protect you now as you always protected me,” she vows and feels Ella’s grip tighten on her as she breathes in the familiar smell of jasmine.

When they pull apart, Ella seems unafraid, and to her surprise is beaming ear to ear. 

“Sister,” Robb says, kindly, extending his hand to her, and only he could pull her from the girls.

She squeezes Ella’s arm, runs her hand over Shireen’s cheek, before crossing through the pathway of kneeling soldiers to Robb. She takes his extended hand, holding his finger tips as she curtseys gracefully. It is the first curtsey in four year that doesn’t feel like a lie.

“No, Sansa… you must never curtsey to me,” he says raising her, “I am your brother.”

“You are my king, as you are theirs. How can they honor you if I do not?” she asks him gently. 

“I do not want your honor, I just want you safe,” he says to her solemnly.

“The surest way of keeping me safe is keeping a crown on your head, Robb. A curtsey is a small price to pay, in fact, it is no price at all. You are my brother and you are my king and publicly I will treat you with all of the deference these positions demand,” she says, and can’t help but smile when his ears turn pink, “But by the gods Robb, as soon as I can I am trimming your hair and making you some new clothes. You look like a barbarian.”

His laugh is like their father’s, deep, from his belly, and it warms her to hear it and finds herself smiling in return. 

“Sansa?” a deep Northern voice asks gently, as though sorry for interrupting her and Robb.

She turns, and is grateful for Robb’s hand in hers holding her steady, when she turns to look into the black eyes of Jon Snow. 

***

His eyes had met Robb’s when they’d watched the way the Southern princesses had rushed to Sansa, the three girls in a rush to assure that the others were alright. They both saw the way the princesses clung to one another, the way the royal courtesies were abandoned.

He couldn’t help it, it set his teeth on edge. It wasn’t that she was a Southern princess. For some reason, he found that he didn’t begrudge Myrcella her family’s name. It was the way the two seemed to grow in one another’s presence. Even their embrace did not fully relax them, and he knew that though their arms were around each other in tenderness that neither one of them would hesitate to throw the other behind them, shielding them from whatever foe lurked.

He could tell that Robb felt it too, that he needed to feel Sansa in his grasp, that he needed to reassure himself that they could protect her now, that she did not need to rely on a princess barely emerged from girlhood to keep her safe.

He wanted to smile when the Northern soldiers stayed kneeling as she passed by them, and he did smile when he saw Robb frown in consternation when she curtseyed before him, as graceful as her Southern counterparts. 

Robb’s laugh was his cue and he came forward, saying the only word he could think of in that moment, “Sansa”. 

She turned to him, still holding Robb’s hand, and her blue gaze was tinged in red.

“Jon…” she said slowly, as though she had forgotten how to form his name on her lips.

“I-I…” he stammered like an idiot. He wanted to apologize, he wanted to fall to his knees in front of her, beg her forgiveness. But there was not an apology in the world that could encompass all the ways he had failed her.

Suddenly words didn’t matter because she let out a little whimper and then she was in his arms. He hadn’t even realized he had opened them to catch her, but her feet were no longer on the ground and her arms were around his neck and she smelled like lemons and home, though she hadn’t been there in years. 

In the deep recesses of his mind he knew that she felt far lighter than a girl of her height should, that he was a little too dizzy from her scent, that her hair felt a little too silky against his cheek, but in that moment all that mattered is that she was the girl he had fought a war for, and she was in his arms, and it had all been worth it.


	3. Chapter 3

She hadn’t been outside of the castle walls since the Riot of King’s Landing. The people had been so angry then. Hungry and sick, tired of paying for wars that never helped them. Disgusted with the royal family.

She remembered wanting to scream at them ‘I’m on your side’. Let’s work together, she had thought, liberate me from them and I will see that your children eat. Return me to my family and I will save yours. 

But she had been a little bird then, a little canary swathed in all of the riches of the royal family and they could not discern her from the lion’s who caged her. They had pulled her and chased her, threatened her with rape as the minister was torn limb from limb. She had been saved, unbelievably, by the Hound. On Myrcella’s orders of course. Rumor had it she had threatened to burn the rest of him if she came back harmed.

It was different this time. There were crowds, but unbelievably they were waving. Not like when Margery had paid them, they were well and truly waving. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands. She did the only thing she could think to do, she raised her hand and waved.

She could have laughed when Robb and Jon looked at her like she was crazy, but then a cheer went through the crowd and she smiled at them, nodding her head, and watched as they raised their hands as well. They laughed as well, their deep Northern chuckles mixing with her melodic giggle and she knew that a new age had descended in Westoros. 

The lions were gone, the pack had come for their lost wolf, and this pack would survive.

***

By the gods they loved her. She was infamous. A wealthy beauty always would be amongst the common folk, but Sansa’s story had taken on mythical proportions in the years they had been apart. To some she was a lost nymph goddess, to others a caged she-wolf, but either way, she was a thing of legends.

He watched her raise her dainty hand, the giggle that erupted when he did the same, him and Robb mimicking her wordlessly. The crowd had cheered then, their joy being the only thing that distinguished them from a mob.

She had left them soon after, to check in on the southern princesses, and he and Robb road with Grenn and Sam at the head of their retinue. 

“It’ll be weeks before we reach Winterfell,” Robb was saying to Sam as they mapped out which castles they’d stop in on their way back. 

“If the snows don’t start too soon it’ll be weeks,” Sam advised, “If they do it could take months.” 

It was hard to believe snow even existed as they marched under the hot sun of the South, but Jon knew that only a few thousand miles North a storm was gathering, daring them to slow down. 

“Do we really need to go North?” Grenn asked and was met with three incredulous stares. “I…I just mean… with the Winter coming… wouldn’t…shouldn’t… oh never mind,” he said dejectedly. 

They continued on for a few miles before Sansa came back to join them. Even on horseback, Sam and Grenn bowed their heads to her, but she only looked at him and Robb, settling herself in between them. 

“How do the Southern princesses fare?” Jon asked, wondering if he should go and check on them.

Robb must have had the same thought, because he excused himself then. Leaving him and Sansa alone.

***

She fought the urge to roll her eyes as Robb separated from the group, in pursuit of Ella, or ‘The Southern Princesses’ as he and Jon had taken to calling her and Shireen. 

Sansa had seen the admiration in his eyes the night before when she had stood in front of the Northern Lords, the look in both of their eyes. Only Jon had chuckled when Ella questioned Lord Umber, but there was a fire in Robb’s gaze that she had never seen before. 

It shouldn’t surprise her. He had become a man in their time apart, they both had, and Ella was beautiful. Her brothers watched Ella with a reverence, that though different from the other’s, were equal in fervor. Had they not done everything in their power to prove their devotion to her, Sansa might have been jealous. 

She couldn’t quite place why she was relieved that Jon’s admiration for Ella seemed to differ from Robb’s, but she told herself that it was because she was afraid of them fighting a war amongst themselves.

“They fare well,” she finally answered him. “The Princess Shireen has not left the Keep since she arrived in King’s Landing, I think Princess Myrcella will lose the ability to speak by the time we get to Riverrun for all the explaining she is doing,” she said with a smile.

“It seems as though you are all close,” Jon said, attempting to make small talk with her. It was a stretch, he was not one for unnecessary conversations. 

“We are, Jon…it’s like we’re blood. El-Princess Myrcella is the only reason I’m still alive today. She saved me, in every way. She’s my dearest friend. They didn’t mean it? Did they? They didn’t mean to banish her or worst?” she asks, though she knows the answer.

He looks over at her, sympathy in his eyes, “I’m afraid they did, Sansa. But don’t worry. We won’t let anything happen to them. The North does not make war on little girls.”

“Everywhere in the world they make war on little girls,” she said, as if in a trance. She had heard that somewhere, though where she knew not. 

“Sansa –“ he said and then broke off as though in pain, “I should have… I should have come for you.”

“You did come for me, Jon. That’s why I’m here…” she said with a quizzical smile.

“No, years ago. I knew. I knew what Joffrey was like. I saw it. I knew it and I didn’t say anything and I’m so sorry. I should have come the moment father was taken prisoner –“

“Jon…Jon no I – “ she started to say, but the memories of that day still haunted her and all of a sudden she felt herself slipping away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really new to writing Sansa and Jon in any real way. Please tell me what you think!


	4. Chapter 4

He didn’t think. If he had, he might have jumped off his horse to the actual ground, so that he might catch her and carry her over to the litter. If he had thought he certainly wouldn’t have leapt from his saddle into hers, easing onto her horse behind her. But, he didn’t think.

It happened so quickly, but suddenly, his arms were around her and her reigns were in his hand and her head was slumped against his shoulder. 

“Sansa? Sansa, sweetling, wake up,” he said, the endearment falling from his lips before he could stop it. 

He felt her wake up, she woke with a start and nearly jumped off the horse but he held her to him, held her by the waist until she was flush against his back. He was terrified that she would jump and harm herself.

“Sansa, sweet girl it’s me. It’s Jon. You’re alright I promise, you’re alright,” he whispered in her ear.

“Jon?” she asked, as though in a daze, but she relaxed against him.

“Yes, sweetling, it’s me,” he said, the name tumbling from his lips once again, “You fainted, that’s all.”

“I fainted that day too,” she said, her voice sounding as though it was coming from the bottom of a grave. She didn’t turn back to look at him but she held his arm to her now, as though afraid he might let go. “I begged Joffrey for mercy and he cut father’s head off and called that mercy. And… I just…fainted. I let him die, I let Arya go. I … “ she says and he can feel her trembling. 

“Sansa, you were fourteen and all alone. What were you supposed to do? Robb had an army and he couldn’t stop it, what were you to do?” he asked her and ignored that his breath hitched when her head fell back against his shoulder. 

Her temple found his chin and he held her to him, anchoring her. It shouldn’t feel like this. He had never held her as a girl, but he knew it wouldn’t have felt like this. He couln’t think about it. Her grip tightened on his arms as she sunk into him and he couldn’t let her go. Not when she needed him.

***

Something had changed between them that day. She no longer favored Robb, her eyes scanned whatever room she entered for them equally. It was easy, they were always together, the King and his Hand. 

In truth, she rarely had to seek them out. She kept Ella and Shireen with her, the three of them often sharing chambers even when they were in sprawling castles. Her brothers gravitated towards her and her little army, and the whole court followed. 

“Princess Sansa,” Samwell Tarly said as he bowed his head over her hand one evening. 

“Lord Tarly,” she said with a smile, lowering into a shallow curtsey. 

“I’m no lord, Princess, you know that…” he said blushing.

“Oh but you speak like a lord,” she teased, “And you dress like a lord…rumor has it you even dance like a lord…” 

She had fallen a little bit in love with him, just like Ella had, just like Shireen had. He wasn’t handsome, but he was loyal and bright and funny, and to them he was like a mythical being of goodness. The girls were not used to kindness from men.

“If it please you, princess, I’d be delighted…” he said blushing as he lead her out to the dance floor.

Ella was already out there with Jon, and her melodic laughter brought a smile to Sansa’s face. 

Sam lead her in the dance, and as she’d suspected, he had a Lord’s grace despite his build. She felt herself give into the melody, and all of a sudden, the dance reached a point where the partners switched, and she found herself in front of Jon. 

“Sister…” Jon said. He had taken to calling her that recently. It grated her. It was the only thing about him that did.

“Brother…” she said in response, noticing the way his teeth set when she did.

Dancing with Jon was different. He lacked Sam’s deep knowledge of the patterns, but his body was made for movement and when he lead her he made her feel like hers was too. 

Their fingers touched, as they turned, palm to palm, and soon, he took hold of her other hand, twirling her so that her back was to him, her arms up in the air as he stalked forward. 

“Where are we now?” she asked him as he turned her back to him.

“A day’s ride from Hornwood, sweetling,” he said. She preferred when he called her that.

“And from there, it should only be two days ride to Winterfell, isn’t that right?” she asked quietly, as though she could scarcely believe it.

“If the snow holds, Sansa. If the snow holds, we’ll be home before the next moon,” he said. 

“Home,” she said, the word foreign on her lips.

“Home,” he repeated, his eyes searching hers.

Suddenly she felt very aware of his hand on her waist, but before she could really think about it, the music ended and he was bowing over her hand and pressing a light kiss to it. 

In the space of a dance, she had been three things to him, what would she be when they got to Winterfell?


	5. Chapter 5

They had been in the North for over a week, but the air had changed a few hours back. They were getting closer, he could feel it. 

He hadn’t even stopped at Winterfell on his way to meet Robb’s army, he knew if he had he may not have had the strength to leave. It had been four long years away, and the idea of falling into his childhood bed had him spurring on his horse at the front of the retinue. 

Robb had been talking to Myrcella, or Ella, as Jon had started thinking of her ever since Riverrun. He hadn’t caught up with him since, and Jon knew that if anyone could divert his brother’s attention it would be her. 

Sansa had refused the litter all day, though often she would choose to ride with little Shireen, now that they days had grown colder. She rode beside him now and they had been in a comfortable silence for the better part of the afternoon, both of them lost in their own thoughts.

“Do you think Old Nan still makes kidney pies?” Sansa suddenly asked him.

He felt his stomach grumble at the question and he turned to her with a smile, “With the peas and onions? I hope so…” His mouth was practically watering and he was sure he looked like Ghost when he saw bacon.

She smiled at him, the cold bringing a pinkness to her cheeks and a brightness to her eyes, “And Bran? Do you think he is still too smart for his own good?” 

They had always been close, Sansa and Bran. Though before the accident, more often than not Bran would be found climbing the castle walls, many times he had been though lost for hours and they’d find him and Sansa in the library, Bran reading to her as she sewed. 

“Aye, he certainly is. We’ve had ravens from him during the war, he has a sharp mind,” he says with pride in his younger brother, who had been forced to take on responsibilities far too young.

Her eyes glimmer now with unshed tears, and he knows what is coming next, “And Rickon? Do you think he is still wild, roaming the castle with Shaggydog?”

The look she has when she mentions the youngest Stark is nearly motherly, filled with worry and yearning – the need to nag and coddle competing within her just as it had Lady Catelyn.

“Wild and sweet, just like he was Sansa,” he assures her, but he knows what she is really asking so he tells her, “Everything will be just like it was, I promise.”

“Nothing will be like it was,” she says, and the smile is gone and a shadow crosses her. 

He hadn’t grown used to it yet, the way their conversations would suddenly gain an audience, a choir of ghosts hovering over their words.

“Perhaps you’re right,” he concedes, but he is so desperate to reassure her. He wished they weren’t on horseback, that there wasn’t a party following them, he wished he could hold her in his arms, “But we will never be parted again, and the North will always remember the way it was, in the golden summer of our youth,” he says. 

He is haunted by his own ghosts, the ghost of his father and his unwilling stepmother, the ghost of Mormont and the countless brother-in-arms that he’d lost. The ghost of him and her and the childhood’s cut too short.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Jon Snow, I can’t bear it,” she says and there is a steel in her voice that confuses him.

“What do you mean?” he asks her, turning so that he may see her expression.

She scoffs at him, and if she hadn’t uttered the words she did next he might have smiled, “We will be parted again. How long do you think it will last before I’m married off?”

“Robb wouldn’t do that,” he says with conviction, forcing the bile back down his throat. 

“He is the king, Jon. It is what is expected of him,” she says, as though explaining it to a child. She had learned from better players than he and Robb, and the lessons they taught her kept her awake at night.

“You may be right, Sansa, but I was in the war with your brother. I was with him when Joffrey sent him letters outlining the ways he would harm you if we pressed on. I was there the day that Lord Cerwyn nearly lost his head for suggesting that perhaps one girl wasn’t worth a kingdom. Robb may be the king, but you will not be sold, what’s expected be damned,” he says vehemently.

“And if you’re wrong, Jon?” she asks him and the steel is gone, the condescension is gone, and for a moment she is the little girl he remembered with snowflakes in her hair.

He wasn’t sure which version of her he was speaking to now, the little girl who tried to braid his hairor the woman he’d seen bewitch an army with a single glance, but regardless, his vow was the same, “Then I will ruin everything and steal you back. Robb is not the only one who went to war for you.”

***

‘Robb is not the only who went to war for you’ he had said to her. There was something in the way he said it. It wasn’t just that he was desperate to comfort her, he seemed desperate for her to believe him, to believe in him. 

She hadn’t had much time to think about it, because soon after, Robb had joined them, a darkness in his gaze she hadn’t seen before, an apology in his eyes she couldn’t quite place. 

The three of them had chatted amiably after that though, she pulled them both out of the moods they had chosen to be in at this horribly inopportune time. They were nearing Winterfell, she would not accept their brooding now.

They had convinced her to sing one of the Northern lullabies that Old Nan had taught them, and she was nearing the second verse when all of a sudden, Winterfell was in sight. 

How many nights had she dreamed of this? How many times had she wandered the Red Keep wishing for the comforting smells, the familiar people? 

She’d hardly had time to process when suddenly, Robb and Jon were both off their horses in front of her, holding out their hands to her. They both looked so happy, that she couldn’t help but smile down at them in return, taking each of their hands and falling off her horse into their strong arms. 

She held onto them both tightly as they started walking towards the castle, and in her periphery she saw that both Ghost and Grey Wind had joined them, just as eager to return home as they were. She knew they must make quite a picture, but all of a sudden, none of that matters and she squeezes their hands letting out a carefree giggle as she starts running through the snow. 

They run all the way through the gates and suddenly her little brothers are there. Rickon runs head first into Robb’s arms but she sees Bran, waiting by the entry. It is not dignity that keeps him from running to them, it is the chair he is now relegated too, so she and Jon make up the distance and finally he is in her arms. 

He is taller, broader than he was when they left, but he smells the same and he is holding onto her and Jon so tightly. Jon has wrapped his arms around them both and she let’s out a cry as she feels herself surrounded by the family she had missed so much.

“What about me Sansa?” she hears a little boy voice say petulantly.

She turns to see her littlest brother standing there and she feels fresh tears come to her eyes, thinking of how little time he’d had with their mother, “I’m sorry, sweetling, come here.”

He sinks into her embrace and she swears to herself that he will not know another day without a mother’s love. She will teach him, teach him how to be a kind lord and a good man, teach him how it feels to be loved unconditionally.


	6. Chapter 6

He aimed his crossbow at her, "You thought your traitor brother could help you? God you're a pretty little fool..."

"Please please, I'm loyal to you, my beloved Joffrey, please" she said, the familiar words mixing with the bile in her throat.

"I know you are my dear. I've decided to reward you, I've brought you a present. Come here," he says, his voice taking on a softness that always frightens her.

She rises slowly, she doesn't look from right to left anymore. No one in the court will help her, over the years they had ceased to have individual faces and had become a sea of complicity.

The present is beautifully wrapped and Joffrey smiles at her reassuringly. She unwraps it quickly, wanting to remove herself from his presence as soon as possible.

"Careful now, its delicate," he said almost bashfully.

She pulled back the paper and her stomach turned. It was something bloody and primal.

"I told you didn't I? I promised I'd give you his traitor heart."

And that is when she started screaming.

***

His heart nearly stopped when he heard it. A terrified, blood-curdling scream was coming from down the hall and he was up in a moment, Long Claw in his hand and Ghost already scratching at the door.

He sprinted down the hall to Sansa's room and forgetting etiquette barged in. Robb nearly fell in behind him, Ice in his hands and Grey Wind's fangs bared. 

He wasn't sure what they expected to see, but it certainly wasn't Sansa in her shift, her head in her hands as she let out scream after scream. 

He had prepared to force his sword into someone, but he could not pierce her memories. Robb, always more prepared than him, always better able to read her mind, hurried over to her bed and gathered his little sister in his arms.

"Shh shh little one, shh, you're alright I promise, you're alright," he said, rocking her back and forth.

He could tell the exact moment that she woke, her screams turning into sobs, "Robb? You're here? You're alive? But Joffrey..."

"He's gone, Sansa, he can never hurt you, I promise, he's gone, he's gone," Robb is saying into her long hair as her arms come around him. 

Jon feels out of place watching them, almost like he was intruding. Robb had always been perfect older brother to her - strong and caring and so protective he could nearly see him expanding in his need to comfort her. Sansa in turn was everything you could hope for in a little sister, sweet and thoughtful and so innocent even still. They were perfect siblings, and Jon, as always felt like he was on the outside, though he was desperate to join them, for it to be his arms she found comfort in. There was a feeling in his stomach akin to jealousy that he ignored.

Soon he was joined by Summer and Shaggydog, as Rickon and Bran filter in the room.

"Sansa?" Rickon's little voice asks as he runs over to the bed, not hesitant to approach like Bran and Jon are. 

"I'm sorry sweetling, I didn't mean to wake you,” she says stroking his cheek, and then turns sheepishly to all of them, “all of you.”

"Did you dream about father? Sometimes I dream about father... and Bran does too...always on the same night, but I didn't dream about him tonight..." Rickon says as he climbs on the bed, Shaggydog hopping up as well. 

"No sweetling, I didn't dream about father...” she says, pulling her little brother to her like he was a doll. It was a marvel, how even now, in the wake of her terror she still found it in her to comfort him.

“Joffrey?” a sleepy voice comes from behind them. He turns and sees Ella, her hair plaited covered in her fur trimmed robe. 

If it weren’t for the situation, he would have laughed at the way Robb straightened up when she entered the room, but it was a testament to the situation how she didn’t curtsey to him.

“Yes… it was…” Sansa starts but can’t seem to finish.

“The heart?” Ella asks quietly, stroking Bran’s hair softly as she passes by him. 

Sansa can’t answer, she only nods. Ella walks over to her, leaning against the bed, her arm around Rickon and Sansa both. 

“He’s gone Sansa and he is never coming back. This lot,” she says with a smirk at Robb and Jon, “Killed him for you and he is never going to hurt you again. It was just like I promised wasn’t it?”

“Just like you promised,” Sansa says as she leans against her friend, and it sounds like a prayer. 

He meets Robb’s eyes, and he sees the same confusion he feels. He had seen Ella's strength, seen their connection, the way they leaned on each other. They adored one another, that much was plain to see, but there was a deeper current to their friendship, full of pain and survival and something that neither he nor Robb would ever be able to truly understand. Not for the first time, he knew that he would happily give his life for Ella's.

There had been talks of a tournament for the position of Ella's sworn shield, dozens of men had already submitted their names, but he knew then that he couldn't risk her life in the hands of someone else. It would have to be him, tradition be damned. 

***

It was lucky she had her old chambers, for otherwise, she wasn’t sure how her room would accommodate all of them. She was surrounded by her brothers and their wolves, scattered on her bed and throughout the room. 

She loved them so much for coming to her aid, but she couldn’t help that she started breathing easier the moment Ella walked in. Only Ella knew what she feared, only she had witnessed the things that haunted her dreams. It was Ella who had saved her from it and saved her from her memories, time and time again.

“He’s gone Sansa and he is never coming back. This lot,” she said, turning to smirk at Robb, who’s ears turned pink, and Jon who smiled in return, “Killed him for you and he is never going to hurt you again. It was just like I promised wasn’t it?”

Ella rubs her arm and she can’t help but lean into her, squishing Rickon happily in between them.

“Just like you promised,” Sansa said. It wasn’t the first time she had uttered those words. She had woken often on the road, but Ella, often in the same bed, had quieted her before anyone noticed, always uttering the same phrase.

She noted the look Robb and Jon shared, the way they looked at her and Ella like they were trying to work out a puzzle. Ella noticed as well and kissed her forehead and then Rickon’s.

“I’d offer to stay, but I think you are very well tended. Rickon, do you think you could guard your sister tonight?” she said sweetly and a smile came to Sansa’s face at the adoring look Rickon gave her. It was quite similar to Robb’s when she thought about it.

“I promise, but how will you get back to your chambers, Princess Ella?” he asked her courteously.

“I know the way, little wolf, don’t worry about me,” she said with a smile as she eased off the bed. It felt colder without her and Sansa knew her brothers felt it as well.

“Grey Wind,” Robb blurted out, and they all turned to look at him like he was insane, including his wolf.

“He’s right there…” Jon said with a smirk, obviously having followed Robb’s line of thought but not being able to resist teasing him.

“Grey Wind will escort you to your chambers, Princess, please have him stay with you tonight,” Robb said in the voice he reserved for Ella, half full of reverence, half courtesy.

“As you wish, your Grace,” Ella, the perfect princess says with a deep curtsey. How she could look regal in a dressing gown Sansa would never know, “I bid you all a good evening. Sleep well, my love,” she finishes with a special smile for her. 

When Ella is gone, her brothers all look at her like they don’t quite know what to do next.

“Thank you all, but I’m fine now. The dreams don’t often come twice in a night,” she says, though it’s a lie. 

“Not a chance, sister, I’ll take the chair. Rickon, Bran, off to bed with you,” Robb says and he sounds so much like her father that it nearly brings tears to her eyes.

“No! Princess Ella asked ME to guard her, not you,” Rickon said stubbornly.

“Yeah, Robb, you’re not going to get rid of us that easy,” Bran says and Jon, clearly seeing they’d lose the battle, picks Bran up out of his chair and sets him down on the bed on either side of Sansa. 

“Jon – you don’t have-“ she starts but is cut off by his stern gaze.

“Not a chance, sweetling,” he says, his voice an octave lower than usual as he crosses to the other chair. 

Her brothers and the wolves settle in around her, as though she were a shrine, and finally she closes her eyes again. That night she falls asleep contemplating the reverence of wolves.


	7. Chapter 7

He shouldn’t have left her. He knew that he shouldn’t, but he knew too that she was in no real danger. The wolves adored her and they were littered about the estate, able to reach her in under a minute if they heard or sensed anything amiss. He knew too that Robb would react the way that he did, and that she would not be on her own with Lord Glover for long. 

He was feeling quite satisfied with himself, he couldn’t have planned it better if he tried. Robb loved her, everyone knew it, apparently except him and Ella. 

He walks back into the castle as he sees a servant bringing up a platter of food. When he sees the lemon scones he knows that is the breakfast he had ordered for the Princesses and before he can stop himself and says, “Excuse me, are you bringing that to Princess Sansa?” 

“Yes my Lord Hand,” the servant, Willa, says with a curtsey, “And Princess Shireen.” 

“I’ll take it to them,” he said, lifting the tray from her.

She scurried off and he took the stairs to the royal wing. He shouldn’t be going there. He had already seen them once that morning and he had business to attend to, but he found himself missing Sansa when he was out of her presence and the Princess Shireen had stolen his heart before they’d even reached Riverrun. He bangs on the door with his head and hears a girlish giggle before Sansa shouts, “Come in!”

“Your breakfast, princesses,” he says with a mock bow. 

“Have you given up your duties as Lord Hand for a vocation in the kitchens, Jon?” Sansa asked teasingly as she rose in her shift to sit at the table. 

He hurried to look away while she pulled her fur-trimmed robe around herself and cleared his throat as he set the tray down. He had not been quick enough though and the white light of the morning had rendered her shift almost useless, hinting at the lithe body that lay beneath.

“Won’t you join us, Jon?” Shireen said sweetly as she plopped in the chair he’d pulled out for her.

“You are most gracious, princess,” he says.

“What time is it?” Sansa asks as she lazily stretches and pours herself a cup of the coffee Robb had brought in from Braavos after learning of the girls love for it. 

“Must be half-morning now,” he says as he grabs a scone. 

“Half-morning?” Shireen screeches, very unlike her.

“What is it, sweetling?” Sansa asks her, though she rubs her temple and Jon finds himself wondering how much wine she’d drank the night before.

“Rickon and I are meant to be studying Valyrian this morning,” Shireen says as she pulls on a dress over her shift, scurrying around looking for stockings and boots. 

“Peace, sweetling. My brother would wait for you forever, he’ll forgive you for being a few minutes late,” Sansa says with a wink at Jon before rising and helping the little girl pull on her stockings and boots, “Are you staying in the castle?” 

“Yes, we’ll be in the library,” Shireen says, twirling her hair. 

“Take a sweater anyway, there’s been a draft in there as of late. And have someone set a fire,” Sansa says, smoothing her hair. 

“Ghost,” Jon says. His wolf gets up as though reading his mind and tilts his head at the little girl as though asking her if she is ready. 

***

She is just having breakfast with her brother, she tells herself as she sips her coffee. It was all in her head, how the mood in the room had changed once Shireen and Ghost had left.

The night before had been eventful, and like the First Act of a court play, the handsome King and the beautiful Princess had each been in the arms of another. She hadn’t liked the way the Northern ladies had treated Ella, all while simpering at Robb and preening at her. She had drank too much wine and had giggled all the way back to Ella’s room, her best friend shushing her while she tried to hold in giggles of her own. 

“How do you drink that stuff?” Jon asks her, cutting into her memories. 

“I developed a taste for it in the South… I think it’s safe to blame Ella,” she says and Jon’s eyes crinkle at her. 

“Shall we do that for everything?” Jon asks her conspiratorially.

She smiles sadly, “I think enough people in this castle are doing that.”

“What do you mean?” he asks her and she fights the urge to roll her eyes. Men never understood the ways of women.

“The Northern ladies do not like her, did you not notice how not a single one introduced themselves to her?” she asks as she slathers a lemon scone in clotted cream.

“I suppose I hadn’t… the Lords have accepted her…and then some…” Jon says with a smile.

“Yes, I think that’s part of the problem,” Sansa says as she steals a berry from his plate. 

“How so?” Jon asks, and she wonders if she is imagining the way his eyes follow her fingers to her lips. 

“She’s a foreign beauty, and a princess at that. Both the King and the Lord Hand have fallen in love with her. How could they not hate her?”

“I’m not in love with her,” Jon says as though it’s obvious.

“You’re a little bit in love with her,” Sansa says knowingly, fighting the feeling in her stomach.

“No, I’m not, Sansa,” Jon says, and his voice is so serious it is like a sworn vow. “I adore her, yes, we all do. But I love her the way I love Bran and Rickon and Shireen.” 

“And me?” she asks challengingly, though she is dying inside.

Jon stares at her for a moment before shaking his head, “Yes of course.” 

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a bad liar, Jon Snow?” she asks as she raises her coffee cup to her lips.

“If only that were my greatest sin,” he says.

They are quiet after that and Sansa feels goosebumps rise when all at once the wolves of Winterfell start to howl.


	8. Chapter 8

The girls didn’t notice the way the crowd sobered the moment they walked in, wearing their matching gowns and their arms linked through one another’s. They looked like snow goddesses, the rich powder blue trimmed with white fur, a winter rose tucked into Shireen’s hair. 

Sansa and Ella inclined towards one another in conversation, and if it had been any other two women he might have thought they were plotting, but Shireen holds Ella’s hand as she picks sugared treats off of the table and she lends an innocence to the older beauties.

He smirks when he sees Sansa balk at the Lady Alys, she does not care for the dark Northern beauty, he knows, but Ella can’t help herself. Sansa twirls Shireen as they follow them and he watches as Ella earns one of Alys’ laughs, the ones that brought a smile to his brother’s face in spite of himself. 

Later that evening, when Ella had sent Shireen off to bed (riding Grenn’s shoulders imperiously) and Sansa was being twirled rather forcefully around the dance floor by Lord Karstark, he approached the Southern Princess.

"Princess," he says with an ostentatious bow. It had become a joke of theirs, outrageous obsequious behaviour towards one another.

"My Lord Hand," she replied solemnly with a curtsey so deep her rear nearly hit the floor. 

"Will you honor me with the next dance, little one?" he asks her. He had wanted to ask Sansa to dance the moment he’d seen her, but she was with Lord Karstark and he couldn’t justify interrupting them. 

She is about to say something, when a deep Northern voice cuts in, "My apologies, Lord Hand, Princess Myrcella had promised the next dance to me."

He looks between Lord Gewan, smirking knowingly, and Ella who is wide eyed at his audacity. He could so easily contradict him, after all, even if it were true, it mattered not when Jon was the Lord Hand and her Sworn Shield, but then he looked to where Robb was sitting at the high table, looking out to the hall, and he thought that perhaps, it wouldn’t be the worst thing for Lord Gewan and Ella to be seen dancing with one another. 

"Of course,” he says, excusing himself and heading over to his brothers.

“This is getting out of hand,” he said, as though exasperated.

“What is?” Robb asked, as though he’d been caught out. Jon had seen him watching Ella as she followed Lord Gewan gracefully about the floor. 

“Lord Gewan, do you know he just lied to me just now?” Jon asks.

They discuss the young pair briefly, before Robb, not being able to stop himself, takes the song ending as an opening to go and seek out the Southern princess. Jon is wondering how many weeks it will take for a proposal when, over his shoulder, as though it is an after thought, Robb says, “Ask our sister to dance, Lord Karstark has monopolized her for too long.” 

He shouldn’t color when Robb says that. He is just asking his sister to dance, it is no different than Robb asking her, or him dancing with Shireen. But nevertheless, his eyes scan the crowd for her red hair and his gaze fixes on the elegant lines of her body as he makes his way over to her.

***

Lord Karstark has nearly given her whiplash from the way he leads her across the floor, and her neck has been tilted this way and that looking for a savior. Just when she is about to feign a headache, a deep Northern drawl cuts in gently, “Forgive me, Lord Karstark, perhaps you’d allow me the company of my sister?”

“Of course, my Lord Hand,” Lord Karstark says, abruptly releasing her and she all but falls into Jon’s arms. 

The song is slow and full of yearning, and she recognized it from one evening on the Kingsroad when Robb had lead Ella gracefully across the floor. The subdued tenor of the dance does nothing to mitigate the rush she feels in movement, the rush she feels being lead by Jon.

“You have become the true Lady of Winterfell, sister,” he says as the dance brings them close together.

“Not for long, brother,” she says with a smile, her head inclined towards Robb and Ella as he leads her, their eyes never straying from one another’s.

“Never fear, you have a place in the North’s heart which will never be reclaimed,” he says to her as he brings her arms above her head, his breath on her cheek. 

She must be imagining the gruffness she hears in his voice, but she cannot deny the shiver that runs down her spine.

“Is that so?” she asks, daring her gaze to flick up to his. His nearly black eyes look inflamed and he spins her roughly, before pulling her back to him, his hand finding the curve of her spine.

“You know it is,” he says as he dips her, in keeping with the dance. 

“I know nothing, Jon… pray tell, what is this place I hold?” she asks. She is playing with fire, she knows it, and yet, she cannot resist. In truth she doesn’t even know what she wants from this conversation, other than perhaps the truth.

“You are Sansa Stark. The oldest daughter of the Ned and Catelyn Stark. You are the Rose of Winter, the sister of the King, the greatest jewel this castle holds…” he says as he spins her, more gently this time. 

“A pretty picture, Jon.”

“Yet you are not satisfied.”

“What satisfaction can I have?” she asks, daring once again to look up at him.

“What satisfaction would you have?” he asks her, cocking his eyebrow at her, and seemingly fighting back a smirk.

He is playing with her. She is a foolish girl who never learns and her elder half-brother is toying with her like she was a girl of six.

If he thinks her a fool, then she will play the fool, “None that you can provide, I’m sure.”

“You wound me, princess. Have you not learned that I would give you anything, anything in my power,” he says, suddenly earnest. She cannot keep up and she feels dizzy at trying.

“I once told you not to make promises to me that you cannot keep, I’ll repeat that request again,” she says as he picks her up in one arm, spinning her around as the dance ends. 

They are too close. It is not supposed to feel like this. It does not feel like this when Robb dances with her, when he spins her and lifts her like she is light as a feather. She does the only thing she can think to do, she flees.


	9. Chapter 9

He stood there for a moment, unmoving, still on the floor where she’d left him. 

He shouldn’t tease her like that, he knew, it was too dangerous, to unknowable. Not for the first time, he wondered at the ease of his relationship with Ella, the brotherly devotion that he had for her, in contrast to his more volatile relationship with his younger sister. 

It was so easy for him with Ella, he could spirit her across the floor, lifting her this way and that, talking of nothing and everything, with no innuendo, no agenda, no unsaid words. He could twirl her and dip her, eliciting her melodic laughter until he himself joined in, and his eyes might never be drawn to her neck, he might never wonder at the slimness of her waist in his grasp, he might never start at the catch of her breath. 

But with Sansa, the slightest touch felt heavy, an errant comment sounded complex, and the gaze of her clear blue eyes felt like chains on his limbs. He had lead her across the floor and he felt his body curving towards hers at the slightest proximity, the need to pull her back when he spun her away illogical. 

He had tried to reassure her of her place, though he could tell that she harboured no resentment towards Ella who would soon supplant her as the first lady of the North. She had played with him, and in return he had toyed with her, until they were lost in a game of their own making, neither knowing the rules or the consequences of a misstep.

She sensed it before he did, that they had crossed a line into unknowable territory, and she had pleaded with him, as he abandoned the traditional end of the dance, desperate to lift her, to feel the comforting weight of her body against his as he turned her in a circle. 

Then, she had left him, and still here he stood like the fool he was.

He knew better than to follow her. He knew that no good could come from it. But she was no random maiden, she was his sister, the girl he would travel to the ends of the earth for, and the different men he wanted to be to her battled within him until he was following her out of the hall. 

He took the stairs two at a time, he knows she would have gone to her chambers, and in the darkest parts of his mind, knew that her maid would not expect her for hours still and that she would be alone.

He knocked on the door and heard her soft reply, “Come in.”

She was standing by the fire, Ghost at her side as always, and she fixed him with a cool gaze when he entered.

“Sister,” he started. He so often called her that now, perhaps in an effort to remind himself.

“Jon,” she said, her voice suggesting a quiet anger though betraying a sadness too. 

“We cannot go on like this,” he says to her resignedly.

“What would you have me to do, brother?” she asks him, her voice treating the title like an insult.

“I would have us love one another, as siblings should, Sansa. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you, do not make us fight a war amongst ourselves,” he pleaded and knew himself to be a coward.

“There are things you would not do for me, Jon. We both know that,” she said, her voice not wavering. 

“Because, sweetling,” he said, crossing to her in spite of himself, in spite of his words, to gather her in his arms, “Because some things cannot be. Because some things should not be.” 

She looked up at him, those blue eyes of her searching his dark ones. He’d pulled her so close to him that he could feel the curves of her, could feel himself reacting to those curves. 

“Cannot,” she repeats, “Should not,” she says, her gaze falling to his lips, “But nevertheless, they are.” 

At that she leans closer to him, close enough for her to know the way she is affecting him and yet, she, his innocent maiden sister, does not move away.

She smells like lavender and she looks like porcelain and she feels like fire and she says like a declaration of war, “Aren’t they, brother?”

***

She stood there for a moment, unmoving, still by the fire where he’d left her. 

She shouldn’t have said the things she’d said, shouldn’t have done things she’d done, but more than that, she should not feel the things she feels or think the things she thinks. 

For the first time, he had seemed as affected by their proximity as she was. She had sensed it before, she would never have uttered the words she had spoken had she not, but tonight she could feel it, in her heart and in her body as he held her to him. 

The feelings, the unnatural, evil feelings she had for him had snuck up on her. It had taken weeks to understand that her feelings for him differed than the ones she felt for Robb. That it was not just gratitude or love or affection but something more sinister, more dangerous, and more hopeful as well.

She had pushed too hard, and he had fled, just like she had from the Great Hall. 

When she had been standing there so long that she felt like an idiot, with Ghost at her side, loyal as ever, she began to dress for bed. She knew that the dreams would come tonight, and she could not bear Jon running back to her, once again her protective brother. So instead, she found her slippers and wrapped her fur trimmed dressing gown around her and went down the hall to Ella’s room. 

She knocked three short times, their old signal from the capital and the melodic giggle beckoned her to come in. 

Ella too was dressed for bed, in her matching dressing gown, her hair plaited, Grey Wind following her as she danced the familiar steps of her dance with Robb. 

“My love, won’t you do me the honor of a dance?” she asked sweetly, bowing low to her and giggling when Grey Wind used the opportunity to lick her cheek.

She can never be in a sour mood when Ella is like this, so she curtsey’s gracefully, bowing her head gently, “The honor is mine,” she said, like their septa had taught them.  
Ella steps forward, guiding Sansa in the familiar movements, but there is a lightness in the steps of her golden haired friend that Sansa doesn’t quite feel. With a twinge of envy, Sansa realizes it is because whether she knows it or not, soon, Ella would be with the one she loved, the one who guided her so gracefully around the floor that her feet hardly touched the ground, the one who could freely ask her to look at him when they danced, free to be a prisoner of her gaze. 

She is comforted that at least this girl, who had saved her in every way you could save a person, would soon find happiness, and that finally, they would be the sisters they had always felt themselves to be.

Later, once Ella’s giggles had finally subsided the two girls climbed in her bed, Grey Wind and Ghost guarding them on either side, resting their heads on the girls’ chests.   
“Your brother is a confusing man,” Ella said dreamily in the darkness. 

She of course is speaking of Robb, the King who, though he may not know it yet, would willingly be her servant for the rest of his days but Sansa is thinking of her darker haired brother when she says, stroking Ghost’s fur, “Aye, he is sweetling, but so very worth the confusion.”


	10. Chapter 10

She is finishing dressing for dinner when she hears a light succession of taps on her door. It could only be Robb, it was their signal as children.

“Come in,” she says as she fixes a pin in her hair. 

“Sometimes you look so much like our mother, I half expect you to tell me what to wear and which ladies to be nice to… oh wait, you already do that,” he says teasingly.

“Well if you weren’t so hopeless, maybe I wouldn’t have to…” she says, equally teasing.

“Hopeless is it? Well we can’t all be blessed with your grace and beauty, sister,” he said sagely. 

 

Not for the first time, she wondered at how natural it felt when Robb called her that. Not just natural, it filled her with pride and contentment and an overwhelming sense of safety. It never felt that way when Jon did. 

“Oh I wouldn’t say that… or rather… I don’t think that Myrcella Baratheon, Princess of the Iron Throne would,” she says with a smile. She had watched them dance around one another, both literally and figuratively, ever since the capital and she was eager for them to embrace the happiness coming to them.

“Peace sister… it seems I cannot go the space of a single conversation without her name coming up…” he said with a sigh.

“Perhaps you should think on that, brother,” she says wisely and when he colors she knows that she has caught him out.

“I will have plenty of time to do so, and that’s why I’m here, Sansa…” he starts and she can see him turning over the words in his head.

“Time? What is it Robb?” she asks, his nerves inspiring her own.

“There has been a Wildling raid north of here, I’ll be going with twenty men to put an end to it and guard the farmlands until the Night’s Watch return. I should be back inside of a month,” he says all in one breath.

“You’re leaving… to defend… crops?” she says, both in anger and confusion. 

“It is not crops, there are farmers there, and besides, with winter coming we cannot afford to lose any food. What kind of King would I be if I cannot defend my people?” he asks her, kneeling before her where she had sat in the chair.

“But… but I just got you back and you’re leaving me? Why can Lord Gewan not lead them, or Lord Karstark? Why does it have to be you?” she asks a tear rolling down her cheek, “Why must it always be you?”

His thumb rubs the tear away but another one falls to replace it as he says, “You know as well as I. It is our way. Every man going has a sister or a daughter or a wife or a son he does not want to leave. Who would I be if I demanded their separation without enduring our own? What would father have to say of that?”

“Honor took father south and he died for it…. Do not speak to me of what father would say,” she says, with more venom in her voice than she could have thought possible. 

“Sansa!” he says, as though he’s been scalded. 

“Robb!” she says, but now the tears are falling in earnest and she’s mumbling apologies and suddenly she is in his arms and he is murmuring promises of return to her, while she holds onto the safest thing she knows and prays for his safe journey.

***

He has just deposited Ella in her room after their visit to the Godswood, leaving Ghost and Grey Wind with her as his ‘deputies’. They had parted with promises of hot cider and shared stories and he had held her tightly, thanking her silently for her kindness under the Weirwood tree. 

He walked the short distance to Sansa’s room, knowing that Ella had been right, that he had to see her before he left with Robb. They hadn’t spoken since he had fled her room the night before and he was not particularly looking forward to it now, but he knew that if death came for him on the road he would regret not seeing her one last time.

He was about to knock when the door opened, and Robb, looking winded came out. Robb clapped him on the back, surely preparing him for something and said, almost as an afterthought, “The Princess Myrcella?”

“In her room, thawing before dinner,” he replied, rapping lightly on the ajar door. 

“Come in,” came a sniffly reply. 

When he entered, he saw the aftermath of Robb’s conversation with her, her eyes and nose were red, and there was a fear present he had only seen when she woke from her nightmares.

He looked at her, but before he could start speaking she said, “So I suppose you’re going as well, then.”

“Aye,” he said with a short nod of his head.

“And I suppose it’s honor that takes you, as it does Robb?” she asks warily.

“These are my men, Sansa. I will not have them, I will not have Robb fight without me. Would you have me abandon him?” he asks, not being able to keep the anger from his voice. 

“I would not have you abandon me,” she says stoically, and it feels like someone has punctured his heart.

“I would never abandon you. How many times do I have to tell you that? Do you not think that you are in every spur of my horse? Every swing of my sword? How do you think I live with it all if not for you?” he says to her, and he feels his resolve and his honor crumbling in front of her icy beauty.

“Me? What do you mean?” she asks, though her voice is softer.

“I have killed hundreds of men, Sansa. By the gods, do you think I could survive that if I did not tell myself that everyone of them was an obstacle to you? It nearly makes it easy.”

“Easy?” she asks, and her tone is now breathless.

“Easier than being parted from you.” He says, crossing to her now, “Easier than thinking what may befall you in my absence,” he says, and he takes her by the arms, desperate to feel her, to reassure himself that she is flesh and bone, just once, before he leaves, “Once I remind myself of that, I can imagine the swing of my sword to be exacting justice. It is vengeance, for anyone who thinks to keep me from your side.”

“My side?” she asks dreamily, “You will fight to return to it?”

“Always. I would fight the gods themselves to return to you,” he says.

Her blue eyes have tears in them now but her cheeks are flushed pink, and even though it cannot be, even though it should not be, he gathers her face in his hands and he places a kiss to her lips.


	11. Chapter 11

He had cursed himself to be an idiot the entire journey north. He couldn’t believe that he had kissed her. In his heart of hearts he knew that he would have tried to do more than that, had a messenger, looking for Robb, not found him in Sansa’s room to tell him of the further attacks and the growing numbers of Wildlings.

Everything then had been a blur, the last kiss to her forehead, finding Robb, readying the horses and men and taking off into the night. 

He and Robb had kept pace for days at the front of the men, so it was they who saw the fire first, rising defiantly into the sky. This was further south than they had been told, but of course the Wildlings had been traveling as they had. That was good, Jon told himself, they would be wary, but taken by surprise. 

“With me, men!” Robb cried and he sounded like the warrior king he was. Jon was the first behind him as always, he would follow his brother anywhere, to the very ends of the earth and he let out a cry of his own, as did their men. 

Like they wanted, the sound attracted the attention of the Wildlings, and all at once they came at them by the hundreds. 

It was like fighting children, Jon thought to himself. Enormous, vicious children, but children all the same. They lacked discipline and the northern soldiers cut through them losing one man to every ten of theirs. 

He nearly had to look away from Summer, Grey Wind, and Ghost who were tearing limbs from any unlucky soul who got close enough to them. He wondered if Ella or Sansa would recognize the beasts who nuzzled them so gently while they read and sewed. Then again, he wondered if they’d recognize him and Robb either. 

They had fought back to back, and had each taken out at least 20 men while they guarded one another. He had made promises to the princesses, and he wondered, as Robb raged viciously against a man who’s spear had come too close to Jon’s arm, if the King had not done the same. 

The battle was over an hour after it had begun and the Wildlings had been killed to the man. 

Lord Gewan found them afterwards, and Jon clapped him on the back and called him brother like he had during the war. He was grateful to be embraced as heartily by his old friend, for only days before Robb had denied his request to ask for Ella’s hand in marriage. That day, Lord Gewan’s loyalty had been tested, but as he and the King embraced Jon knew that it had not been broken. 

Jon was relieved. He would not want to lose a friend as good and loyal as Lord Gewan over his inability to understand the inevitability of Robb and Ella.

***

It had been days and still they had no word. She felt like a ghost and the castle felt filled with them. It was like a spell had been cast over Winterfell, leaving sombreness in its wake. 

Ella tried. She had hired a dancing instructor for them and they had spent their afternoons learning new steps from Volantis and Braavos and the Summer Isles, dances they would never need to know but enjoyed mastering anyway. She had taken over Rickon and Shireen’s studies and the two children would be doubled over in laughter recounting Ella’s depictions of the Age of Heroes. 

But Sansa slept with her every night and she knew that her friend lay awake for hours in the darknesss, as she did. She knew never to look for her after breaking her fast, because her friend would be on her knees for hours in the Godswood. So she knew, that as brave and as selfless as her dearest friend was, she was no more confident in the return of the men that they loved than she was.

Sansa spent most of her time with Bran. He had been left as regent in Robb’s absence and had called on Ella and she to advise him. They both attended council, but Sansa spent long hours with him as they poured over the accounts and the reports from all across the kingdom.

She was unsurprised but proud nonetheless of how wise her little brother had become. He had always been precocious, always quick of wit, but he was sage already at the tender age of twelve.

They had just finished council one day and Ella and she went to find Rickon and Shireen, knowing they would be in the library.

They stumbled upon the two children holding hands, the love they felt for each other undeniable even though they were too young to understand it. They were trying to convince them to go outside when they heard the gates open, and the steady marching of horses. 

They all raced to the window and saw their soldiers flooding into the entrance. She and Rickon raced out of the library, taking the stairs nearly two at a time. They ran out of the front door and Rickon jumped right into Robb’s arms. Though she longed to hug her elder brother, she was grateful to be able to fall into Jon’s arms. 

He was filthy with blood and dirt, but he was unharmed and so beautiful that she clung to him as though her life depended on it. She wasn’t sure which version of him was holding her now, her would-be lover, or her protective half-brother but she didn’t care as his arms came around her and her head found the crook of his neck. 

“You came back to me,” she is saying against his skin and he is rocking her, his hands smoothing her hair as he says, “I promised you, sweetling, the gods themselves could not have kept me away from you.” 

She wondered if he knew what he said, for it was the gods themselves that the people would say forbade their union. How can even he, one of the best two fighters in the kingdom, fight the pitiless gods, and what would he lose if he tried?


End file.
